Avery  Architectural  and  Fine  Arts  Library 
Gift  of  Seymour  B.  Durst  Old  York  Library 


IEx  ICtbrts 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


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Office  of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred. 
1212  Broadway,  New  York,  August,  1886. 


Mr.   

Dear  Sir  :  Will  you  kindly  read  the  subjoined  Address 
of  the  Committee  of  One  Hundred  ;  and,  if  you  approve 
the  purposes  of  the  committee,  sign  the  roll  of  those  who 
mean  to  secure  them  ? 

Citizens  of  New  York  : 

The  condition  of  your  city  government  demands  thought- 
ful attention.  The  current  expenses  of  the  city  of  New 
York  for  1884,  the  latest  year  for  which  the  detailed 
accounts  are  accessible,  are  stated  by  Mayor  Grace  in  his 
message  of  January  4th,  1886,  after  deducting  the  amounts 
paid  to  redeem  debt,  the  State  taxes,  and  sums  properly 
chargeable  to  former  years,  at  $33,834,812.96,  or  for  each 
inhabitant,  $25.28. 

This  is  vastly  in  excess  of  the  cost  of  governing  any  other 
great  city  in  the  world  ;  and  is  from  fifty  to  two  hundred 
per  cent  greater  than  the  cost  of  governing  any  city  with 
which  New  York  can  fairly  be  compared. 


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The  rate  of  increase  of  the  cost  of  government,  and  of 
taxation  to  support  it,  is  alarming.    Thus  : 

In  1810  the  current  expenses  for  each  inhabitant  were  $1.25 
"  1836    "        "  "         "     "         "  "  2.00 

"  1850   "        '*  ;  "     "         "  "  5.00 

"  1877    "        "  '  "     "    .     "  M  20.OO 

"  1884    "        44  14     "         "  "  25.28 

WHAT  BECOMES  OF  THE  MONEY  ? 

No  man  has  suggested  that  the  enormous  cost  represents 
a  corresponding  superiority  of  public  service.  The  ineffi- 
ciency of  our  city  government  is  almost  as  notorious  as  its 
extravagance.  But  the  question  is  clearly  answered  by 
every  responsible  and  impartial  inquirer  who  has  in  recent 
years  investigated  the  subject. 

In  1875,  the  Governor  appointed  a  commission  to  consider 
the  subject  of  city  government  in  this  State,  and  to  report  a 
plan  to  the  Legislature.  After  more  than  a  year  of  labor 
this  commission  submitted  an  elaborate  report  to  the 
Legislature  of  1877,  signed  by  William  M.  Evarts,  Samuel 
Hand,  E.  L.  Godkin,  John  A.  Lott,  Joshua  M.  Van  Cott, 
James  C.  Carter,  Oswald  Ottendorfer,  William  Allen  But- 
ler, Simon  Sterne  and  Henry  F.  Dimock. 

These  gentlemen  say  : 

First,  of  the  debt  of  this  city  :  "It  was  abundantly  suffi- 
cient for  the  construction  of  all  the  public  works  of  a  great 


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metropolis  for  a  century  to  come,  and  to  have  adorned  it 
besides  with  the  splendors  of  architecture  and  art.  Instead 
of  this,  the  wharves  and  piers  are,  for  the  most  part,  tem- 
porary and  perishable  structures  ;  the  streets  are  poorly 
paved  ;  the  sewers  in  great  measure  imperfect  and  in  bad 
order  ;  the  public  buildings  shabby  and  inadequate.  .  .  . 
In  truth,  the  public  debt  of  the  city  of  New  York,  or  the 
larger  part  of  it,  represents  a  vast  aggregate  of  moneys 
wasted,  embezzled,  or  misapplied." 

Second,  of  the  annual  expenditure,  that  it  has  increased 
far  more  than  is  apparent  from  the  published  budgets,  enor- 
mous sums  being  "  every  year  exacted  from  the  property 
owners  in  the  form  of  special  assessments,"  though  "  a  very 
large  part  of  it  belongs  to  the  account  of  ordinary  repairs  ;" 
but  that,  as  clearly  shown  by  the  general  budgets,  44  we  have, 
during  the  past  twenty-five  years,  .  .  .  outrun  all  former 
examples  of  wastefulness,  extravagance,  and  corrupt  ad- 
ministration." 

With  this  city  particularly  in  view,  they  add  :  "  We  do 
not  believe  that,  had  the  cities  of  this  State,  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  had  the  benefit  ...  of  competent  and 
faithful  officers,  the  aggregate  of  municipal  debts  would 
have  amounted  to  one  third  of  the  present  sum,  nor  the 
annual  taxation  one  half  of  its  present  amount  ;  while  the 
condition  of  these  cities  .  .  .  would  have  been  far  superior 
to  what  is  now  exhibited." 

More  recently  two  elaborate  investigations  of  the  city 


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government  have  been  attempted  by  committees  of  the 
Senate,  one  in  1880,  the  other  in  1885.  The  report  of  each 
of  them,  supported  by  a  mass  of  evidence,  confirms  at  every 
point  the  conclusions  of  Governor  TildenJs  commission  cited 
above.  Those  three  important  official  investigations  of  city 
affairs  combine  to  show  : 

1.  That  more  than  one  half  of  the  taxes  paid  to  the  city 
produce  no  public  benefit  ;  that,  after  deducting  the  lega- 
cies of  past  extravagance  and  corruption  in  the  existing  debt 
and  in  the  maintenance  and  repairs  of  property,  more  than 
a  third  of  these  taxes  are,  through  various  channels,  dis- 
tributed among  political  managers  and  their  adherents,  sup- 
porting a  large  and  increasing  body  of  men,  whose  business 
is,  by  the  machinery  of  the  city  government,  to  extract 
money  from  you  and  appropriate  it  to  themselves.  The 
amount  of  your  money  which  is  thus  worse  than  wasted 
every  year  is  more  than  the  interest  of  $500,000,000  at  three 
per  cent,  the  rate  upon  most  of  the  debt  recently  con- 
tracted ;  and  the  continuance  of  this  system  of  organized 
plunder  is  a  greater  burden  to  the  city  than  a  mortgage  at 
that  rate  and  for  that  amount  ;  almost  one  half  of  the 
assessed  valuation  of  real  estate  in  the  city  and  county  of 
New  York. 

2.  That  this  system  is  maintained  and  made  possible  by  a 
combination  of  causes,  the  removal  of  which  will  require 
radical  changes  both  in  our  laws  and  in  the  administration  of 
them. 


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3.  That  the  acts  of  the  Legislature  at  any  time  in  force, 
which  together  constitute  at  that  time  the  charter  of  the 
city,  form  an  immense  and  complicated  body  of  law,  ill- 
digested  and  inconsistent  in  many  of  its  parts,  and  every 
year  made  more  confused  and  more  unintelligible  by 
changes  or  additions,  framed  under  the  dictation  of  special 
interests.  The  nominal  executive  head  of  the  city  has  but 
an  imperfect  control  of  the  several  departments  ;  the  heads 
of  nearly  all  the  departments  have  a  divided  responsibility, 
and  the  whole  framework  of  the  government  seems  designed 
to  protect  incapacity  and  conceal  corruption. 

4.  That  the  connection  of  municipal  offices  with  national 
and  State  politics  gives  the  control  of  these  offices  to  the 
managers  of  the  political  parties,  in  their  local  factions  and 
associations  ;  that  they  are  awarded  in  payment  of  partisan 
or  personal  services,  or  in  return  for  promises  which  make 
our  public  servants  the  tools  of  irresponsible  M  bosses." 

WHO  ARE  THE  SUFFERERS  ? 

No  long  argument  is  needed  to  show  where  the  burden 
falls.  The  simplest  consideration  shows  that  if  owners  could 
not  get  so  much  for  the  use  of  their  capital  in  Xew  York  as 
in  Brooklyn  or  Philadelphia,  they  would  go  away  with  it. 
In  the  long  run,  they  must  be  paid  as  much  for  interest  or 
rent,  on  every  thousand  dollars,  here  as  elsewhere.  If. 
then,  the  city  takes  nearly  three  per  cent  every  year  in 


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taxes,  this  amount  must  be  added,  by  the  landlord  to  his 
rent,  and  by  the  tenant  who  pays  the  rent  to  the  goods  or 
services  which  he  sells.  Every  man  who  has  to  find  food 
and  home  and  raiment  for  his  family  in  this  city  knows  that 
he  has  to  pay  more  for  smaller  rooms,  poorer  fare,  and 
meaner  clothes  than  in  any  other  place  upon  the  continent. 
It  is  the  wages  of  industry  out  of  which  the  vast  stealings 
of  city  politics  are  taken.  Thus,  every  workingman  is 
lodged  less  comfortably  and  less  healthfully,  his  children  are 
worse  fed,  his  leisure  hours  are  shortened,  and  he  is  robbed 
of  a  material  part  of  the  prosperity  and  happiness  he  fairly 
earns.  The  whole  community  suffers,  except  those  who 
receive  an  undue  share  of  the  spoils,  but  it  is  the  earner  of 
wages  who  is  most  cruelly  wronged. 

Citizens  of  New  York,  if  an  army  of  foreign  invaders 
should  encamp  in  your  public  buildings  and  your  streets, 
threatening  to  extort  from  you  the  yearly  revenues  of  an 
empire  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  how  long  would  you  en- 
dure their  presence  ?  Not  one  of  two  hundred  thousand 
New  Yorkers  would  hold  his  life  too  dear  to  set  at  risk  for 
their  destruction.  But  the  evil  now  to  be  met  is  graver, 
though  the  call  is  not  to  arms.  The  wealth  that  violence 
could  take  from  us  might  be  replaced  by  patient  industry. 
But  who  shall  restore  to  a  community  its  lost  honor?  The 
thirst  for  private  gain  has  become  the  controlling  and  avowed 
motive  in  seeking  and  administering  your  public  offices. 
Your  city  fathers  sell  their  ordinances.    Your  rulers,  with 


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more  power  over  your  property  and  with  more  intimate  re- 
lations to  your  lives  than  feudal  monarchs  ever  had  among 
their  subjects,  traffic  in  their  appointments  and  public  con- 
tracts. Capitalists,  householders,  merchants,  and  laborers 
are  taught  that,  while  there  is  no  way  to  obtain  justice,  there 
is  a  way  to  buy  favor,  now  with  money,  now  with  votes. 
Corruption  spreads  through  all  business  and  all  society  ;  and 
the  name  of  your  city  is  made  a  byword  throughout  the 
world.  To  acquiesce  in  all  this  now  is  to  prepare  de- 
generacy for  your  children,  and  to  invite  future  generations 
to  find  in  New  York  a  den  of  thieves.  You  have  power  to 
put  an  end  to  it.  Let  every  citizen  who  has  nothing  to  lose, 
but  much  to  gain,  by  requiring  that  the  business  of  the  city 
be  carried  on  as  a  public  trust,  unite  with  us  in  a  persistent 
effort  for  reform,  and  success  will  be  speedy  and  certain. 
In  the  interests  of  no  man,  of  no  party  and  of  no  faction, 
but  of  our  beautiful  and  beloved  city  alone,  we  ask  you  to 
enroll  your  names  with  ours,  as  those  of  men  who  will  work 
and  vote  together  to  secure  in  New  York  a  city  government 
which  shall  be  truly  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people. 

The  principles  which  will  guide  our  efforts  are  expressed 
in  the  resolutions  adopted  by  your  great  mass-meeting  of 
June  2d.  The  particular  measures  to  be  adopted  must  be 
determined  when  a  sufficient  number  of  citizens  shall  have 
sanctioned  these  principles  to  make  the  final  expression  of 
their  will  irresistible.     The  entire  separation  of  our  local 


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affairs  from  national  and  State  politics,  the  control  of  them 
by  the  people  of  the  city  in  their  own  interests,  the  con- 
centration of  responsibility,  the  simplification  of  administra- 
tive duties  and  of  accounts,  and  the  selection  of  all  muni- 
cipal officers  on  the  ground  of  integrity  and  capacity  alone, 
are  the  ends  we  seek  ;  and  we  ask  you  to  join  us  in  devising 
and  promoting  means  to  secure  them. 

Respectfully  yours, 

The  Committee  of  One  Hundred, 

Henry  A.  Oakley, 

Chairman. 

Robert  A.  Van  Wyck, 

Secretary. 


cusses 


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